Percy's Fishtale
by April Mayz
Summary: Percy gets a Fish Tank for his fifth birthday. The story of his fish. NOT a one shot. WARNING: Has the potential to be sad.
1. Chapter 1

"Open your present Percy!" Sally Jackson sat at the table in their small apartment and snapped pictures as, now five-year-old Percy pulled a large present towards himself. The present was a large rectangular prism, covered in blue bubble paper with a big bow on top. Little Percy grabbed the paper and tore it off. The camera flashed.

"What is it, Mom?" he asked.

"Open your card, sweetie," Was Ms. Jackson's reply. Percy picked the card off the bottom of the present and opened the orange envelope. The card had a fish with a birthday cake on it. Percy opened the card and a newspaper-clipping full of coupons fell out. "Can you read the card with me?" Sally pointed to words.

"Happy… B-ir-th-d-ay Percy. Y-our pr-e-s-e-nt is a-t th-e p-e-t st-o-re. L-ove M-o-m." They read together.

"Good job Percy!" Ms. Jackson praised him.

"What is it?" Percy asked again, looking the glass tank over and out to find some secret compartment, or maybe for a button that transformed it into something other than a plain glass box.

"Percy, do you want to go get the rest of your present?" Percy glanced at the box then nodded. They grabbed their shoes and headed out the door.

The pet store was only a few minutes walk from their small apartment in Manhattan. Once they got there Ms. Jackson led Percy to an aisle full of little toys, colorful rocks, and plastic plants. "Pick out a toy or two and some rocks for your fish tank."

Percy stared at all the wonderful toys. Treasure chests that opened with bubbles, mermaids, shipwrecks. And the bags of rocks. They had every color plus they had two or three or four colors mixed in with each other. Ms. Jackson went down the aisle farther to look at plastic plants and left Percy in a five-year-old's wonderland.

Five minutes later Percy came and tugged on Sally's shirt. "I want those ones," He said. He led his mom over to the shelves.

"Are you sure?" She asked Percy nodded. She lifted a miniature coliseum off the shelf and put it into her cart then a bag of bright orange rocks. "Time to find your fish!" She sang and pushed the cart towards the end of the aisle. Percy thought nothing could top the toy aisle until he turned the corner. The wall was lined with fish tanks full of Real. Live. Fish. "Chose your fish."

Percy ran down the row looking at every kind of fish then ran back to look at ones he already had looked at. An ADHD boy's dream. "I want that one." Percy finally concluded, pointing to a Red Eyed Tetra. The salesman filled a bag full of water and started to scoop up a fish, but Percy screamed. "No! Not _that_ one. That one."

The salesman tried again and apparently scooped up the right fish. "Percy, you can get some more. That fish will be lonely in that big tank."

Percy ran down the row a few more times and finally pointed to a tank with orange fish swimming around. "I want the spotted one," Percy announced. The salesman scooped up the fish with a Mickey Mouse head shape on its tail. Then a Neon Tetra that was green instead of blue, then another Red eyed Tetra with spots on its back. "That's it," Percy announced to the salesman. The salesman blew air into the fish bag and tied it off. Then he gave it to Sally and showed them where the check out counter was.

Percy insisted on carrying the fish home and when they got there they began setting up the tank right away. Ms. Jackson set the fish tank up on a drawer Percy had in his room on top of a towel. Then they cleaned the rocks and put them in the bottom. Percy set the newly cleaned coliseum in the middle of the tank and Ms. Jackson put plastic plants in the middle of it "So that the fish have something to do." Then she filled the tank with water, put some drops of fish tank stuff in and one final touch. Ms. Jackson went into her room and came out with a single sand dollar. She whispered something and plopped it in, watching it fall to the bottom. The tank suddenly seemed cheerier.

"What do you say, Mom?" Percy asked.

"Nothing," Sally wiped a tear from her eye. "Let's get those fish in the tank."

Putting the fish in the tank proved harder than it sounds. With an ADHD boy it is almost impossible to let the fish get acclimated before dumping them in. Sally had to wait beside Percy for the whole five minutes to be sure he didn't accidentally kill his new pets. "But Colorful wants to swim in the coliseum!" Percy whined.

"Whose Colorful?" Sally asked. 'And how do you know what a coliseum is,' she thought.

"That one." Percy pointed the first Red Eyed Tetra he had picked. "That one is Snoopy," He said as he pointed to the orange fish with the Mickey Mouse spot, "That one is Lemonade," The green Neon Tetra, "And that is Spot," The spotted Red Eyed Tetra.

It was finally time to let the fish explore. Slowly, Sally dumped them into the tank. Colorful and Spot went to explore the coliseum while Lemonade checked out the sand dollar. Snoopy swam in a circle around the top of the tank. Percy sat, amazed and ms. Jackson slowly backed out of the room to make lunch.

Percy sat in front of his fish tank all day. He talked to the fish, got them to follow his finger, fed them. His mom had to literally drag him away from the tank to eat dinner. All he talked about was his fish.

"And Spot and Colorful are getting married, Spot is the girl and Colorful is the boy. Lemonade is really fast; he is the fastest in the world. Snoopy likes circles, he told me so…"

Ms. Jackson smiled to herself, hearing Percy talk like that. Tears welled into her eyes. 'Cheers, Honey.' She thought to herself. 'I sure miss you.'

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**A/N: The fish in this story were my fish's names except for Snoopy, which was my sister's fish last year. When we moved I had to give them away and they all eventually died. I had thirteen fish, but Colorful, Spot, and Lemonade were the most memorable. I will reveal my personal FishTale in the chapters to come. **


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N: I just learned that Lee Fletcher died so I'm kind of sad. I choked on my bagel chip because I was so surprised. It did not influence the story, however because it was already written out by the time I got the news. It is kind of a sad chapter though. **

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Percy fed his fish every day. He "played" with them; little games like, "Follow the Finger" and "fishy Races." At night he stared at his beautiful fish until his eyes grew heavy. Then, things changed.

"Percy! Time for Kindergarten!" Sally called. No response. "Percy?" Ms. Jackson pushed the door open to see little Percy sitting on the floor next to his fish, staring into the tank. She sat down beside him. "Are you ready to go to kindergarten?"

Percy shook his head. "I want to bring Colorful."

"Honey, you can't bring your fish to school."

"But, he'll be lonely."

"I'll be sure to take good care of him. Besides, he'll have his wife, Spot to keep him happy." Ms. Jackson helped Percy up and led him to the kitchen for breakfast.

For Sally, it was her first quiet day since Percy was born. She took the opportunity and sat down on the couch. She would stay home today incase something went wrong down at the school and tomorrow she would go into work.

"Mom! Mom!" Percy yelled as he ran to Sally. "The bus driver is really mean. There's this girl in my class with boing! curls and this kid named Paul pulled her hair. He got sent to the principal's office on the first day! I asked the teacher if I could bring my fish to school and she said I could on my sharing day. My teachers name is…" Percy was talking a mile a minute, not that Sally minded. At least he was fitting in.

Months went by and Percy still hadn't had his sharing week. "Try harder to stay still in class and maybe…" his teacher always said. Adding kindergarten to the Jackson's already crazy life had screwed things up. One day Percy came home talking about a creepy guy on the playground with one eye. Soon after, Sally got married to Gabe Ugliano. Gabe hated Percy and Percy hated Gabe back. The only joy Percy found was talking to his fish.

"Mom." Sally was taking Percy to school in the Camero after he had missed the bus.

"What Percy?"

"Why do you love Gabe?"

Sally was stopped by the question. She pulled into the Safeway parking lot and parked the car. "Honey, there are things that… are hard for kids to understand. This is one of those thing."

"Well, I wish Daddy didn't die," Oh, this was killing Sally.

"Daddy isn't dead. You know that. He loves you very much."

"More than Gabe." At that Sally turned on the radio and pulled out of the parking lot. The rest of the way there Percy was silent.

"I love you!" Sally called after him, but he only waved. The car ride home was almost worse then the ride there.

When Percy came home he went straight into his room and screamed. Ms. Jackson ran in. "What's wrong?" Percy had thrown himself on the floor in front of his fish tank and was bawling.

"L-lemonade!" He sniffed. "Is g-gone!" He cried and cried while Sally frantically searched around the tank for the missing fish. Then she saw him, floating at the top.

"Oh." She gasped. She felt tears running down her face too. "Honey, come on. Let's go." Percy continued to cry, but let his mom lead him into the bathroom. There she sat him down on the closed toilet wiped his face with a washcloth. He sniffled, but stopped crying.

"Percy," she began, then didn't know how to finish.

"I need to go potty," Percy whined then started to cry over this new tragedy.

"Shh sh sh. It's ok. You can go potty."

"I can't get my button." Percy sobbed. He squirmed and bounced and crossed his les as Sally struggled to get his button undone. Percy sure was making this difficult.

"Tough button," Sally grunted as the button gave way. "There you go."

"Thank you. Go please." He pointed to the door.

"Ok." Sally left and closed the door, then ran to the kitchen. She looked through drawers and came up with an old pimento jar. Then she tiptoed to Percy's room and scooped up the decaying fish. The toilet flushed. Sally launched herself towards the kitchen and hid the dead fish just in time.

"I'm done."

Sally sighed. "Percy, come sit down." And over chocolate chip cookies and red Kool-Aid Ms. Jackson broke the news about Lemonade. Percy cried and cried.

"Honey, would you like to have a funeral for Lemonade?" Percy nodded; his head buried in his mother's chest, then blew his nose on her shirt.

Ms. Jackson picked flowers from around the apartment while Percy made a headstone out of clay. The headstone was put in the oven at 350° and they waited.

The service was held in Percy's room. Ms. Jackson brought out Lemonade in the pimento jar, said some good words and put him into a hole Percy had dug in the window flowerbox that didn't have any flowers yet. Then Percy told him how he had been the best fish ever and he would miss him and Fish Races wouldn't be as fun without him because he was the only one who could beat Snoopy. Ms. Jackson covered Lemonade with dirt and Percy stuck the headstone in the dirt.

"Percy, go take a bath," Ms. Jackson ordered.

"But I can't turn the water on right."

"Go into the bathroom and get undressed, I'll turn on the water."

"Ok…" Percy trudged off to the bathroom, pulling his shirt off as he went. As soon as he was gone Sally went into her room and got a little box. Then she went back to Percy's room and opened it. Inside were little white shells. She poured a few into her hand and studied them. She pushed the dirt in front of the headstone away to reveal a very dead Lemonade. She then poured the shells in her hand over the fish.

"For Poseidon," she whispered. "Please keep him and Percy safe." There was the smell of sea air and flowers, and then Lemonade disappeared. Sally stood at the window, reminiscing.

"Mommy, I can't get my button."

'Not again,' thought Sally as she, again, put on her happy face and went to help her baby boy.

**

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**

A/N: Of the thirteen fish I got for my fifth birthday Lemonade (my favorite) was the first to die. We held a funeral for him and buried him in our back yard. I was so sad, just like Percy, when my mom told me. Colorful and Spot soon became my favorite. There was no Snoopy at that time. Right now my fishy is Optimums Prime. I came up with the idea when we were shopping for a new filter. I saw a fish tank coliseum and thought of Percy.


	3. Chapter 3

Percy recovered quickly from the death of Lemonade, though about a day after I caught him trying to dig up the body. I told him not to. Soon life was rolling smoothly again, well smoothly for us. Percy still hadn't gotten his sharing week and I was worried that he was taking it too hard. He started bring home homework which was stressful for everyone, even Gabe. With me helping my dyslexic son with reading homework I couldn't service his poker parties as often anymore. That's when everything went bad.

One day after Percy had already gone off to school I happened to come home early from work, for some reason I looked into Percy's room to see; oh, the horror. A small shape on the floor, Spot. My head spun. How could have this happened? The top of the tank was half on and next to the tank the fish net, soaking wet. "Oh, why?" I sobbed. Delicately, I picked up the dead fish. "The poor fish. She did nothing wrong."

Percy took the news even worse than Lemonade. "B-but she was m-married to Colorful!" He sobbed and screamed. Nothing distracted him from his dead fish. Another ceremony was held, but this one cut short when Percy curled in a ball on the floor and threw a fit.

November crept on. I got a call one day to come and pick Percy up; he had thrown up in the Play-Dough. He suffered through two days of vomiting; I was up all night helping Percy lean over the toilet. Once he ran out of his room to tell me he was going to throw up and ended up throwing up near Gabe's poker party. Needless to say the whole… family got sick too and Gabe was the worst to take care of. I of course got sick last.

I was lying on the couch watching A Christmas Story when a familiar feeling overcame me and I ran to the bathroom with my garbage can. As soon as I finished getting sick I left the bathroom. Out of the corner of my eye I saw another little form, this time skewered. Snoopy lay on the floor, bleeding to death, with a cocktail sword sticking from his side.

And finally the day we had been waiting for all year. Percy was scheduled to bring in Colorful, his only surviving fish, into class on that Thursday. He was so excited. I went to the pet store to get bags and worked extra hours to be able to take off work for a day.

Then the unthinkable happened. Colorful passed away of natural causes Wednesday night. Percy did not cry or scream, just stood there and looked at his empty tank.

**A/N: I'm sorry for the sad ending. My fish story ended sad, but my step dad didn't kill any of my fish. **


End file.
